2010

Islamic Lawfare – Seditious Use of the Courts to Wage “Civilization Jihad”

By CHERYL GATESWORTH and WILLIAM MAYER

May 19, 2014– San Francisco, CA – PipeLinenews.org – When the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR] was formed in 1994 it presented itself as an organization dedicated to guaranteeing the civil rights of American Muslims, when indeed those rights were not threatened.

If the allegation implicit in the formation of CAIR were valid, reliable information would be available to prove the contention. The good news; the claim can be validated or debunked using publicly available records gathered and collated by federal law enforcement.

The bad news is that CAIR is lying about this matter.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation produces a survey every year called the Uniform Crime Report, a compilation all criminal activity that falls within the purview of federal law enforcement.

The data is divided up into various categories of crimes including the relatively new and wholly invented offense called “hate” crime - using the defendant’s perceived state of mind as an aggravating factor. As an aside, Orwell, foreseeing the ominous rise of the surveillance state, rightly classified these non-offenses as “thought crimes.” The effect of the legislation to create a whole new class of “offenders” has served to elevate offenses such as vandalism, simple assault and the like into federal offenses thus calling in the big dogs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Now this being the government, the statistics are not current. Regardless, the 2012 data is comprensive enough to prove or disprove CAIR's assertions.

During that calendar year 149 were crimes documented as having been committed against Muslim Americans based upon religious bias, whereas 696 of this class of criminal offense were committed against Jewish Americans.

There are three major conclusions we can draw from this:

1. America is the most religiously tolerant nation earth.

2. Crimes motivated by religious animus committed against Muslims living in the U.S. are insignificant in number. Though crime is not equally distributed among the populace, as a matter of perspective this averages less than three incidents per state, per year.

3. If any religious group has cause for concern, it's Jewish Americans.

But what about the incessant cry of Islamophobia?

It’s also a fabrication, crafted to create a sense of victimhood. This is of central importance in the organization’s ongoing polemics and a key factor in Islamic stealth jihad, pre-violent internal subversion against the society - cultural jihad.1

Why would CAIR, self described as defending the civil rights of Muslims, lie?

Consider its history:

CAIR grew largely out of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), the domestic publicity arm of the terrorist group HAMAS. The organization was founded in 1994 by Omar Ahmed [IAP’s President], Nihad Awad [IAP’s PR Director] and Ibrahim Hooper, an American convert.

Mousa Abu Marzook, then a chief HAMAS operative provided significant funding for the operation, about $500,000.

As Discover the Networks chronicles:

“…an August 14, 2001 Immigration and Naturalization Services report, IAP's work consisted of “publishing and distributing HAMAS communiqués printed on IAP letterhead, as well as other written documentation to include the HAMAS charter and glory records [a list of terrorist attacks that HAMAS had carried out against Israeli civilians], which are tributes to HAMAS’ violent ‘successes.’” The same report also stated that IAP had received “approximately $490,000 from [Mousa Abu] Marzook during the period in which Marzook held his admitted role as a HAMAS leader.” Terrorism expert Steven Emerson characterized IAP as Hamas' "primary voice in the United States." The former chief of the FBI's counter-terrorism department, Oliver Revell, called IAP ‘a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants.’” [source, profile: Islamic Association for Palestine]

The fraudulent Islamic charity, The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development [HLF], gifted CAIR with a $5,000 check to be used as seed money for the groups Washington, DC office.

HLF was a conduit established to finance terrorisn, as a result it was shuttered in 2001. In 2008, HLF’s officers were convicted of providing material aid [at least $12M] to HAMAS. All the defendants were found guilty on a total of 108 charges and all received long prison sentences. One of those convicted was Ghassan Elashi, also the co-founder of the Texas chapter of CAIR. At the time of the conviction Elashi was already in prison on another terror related charge.

CAIR was infamously identified as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood/HAMAS in court proceedings during the 2008 trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development:

"…Federal District Court Judge Jorge Solis in a 2009 post prosecution decision arising out of the Holy Land case, was very clear in associating CAIR with Hamas, "The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT, with NAIT, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas," U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis said in the July 1, 2009, ruling.." [source, The Investigative Project, Federal Dist. Court filing],

At first, the group operated out of a small office in Orange County, California. It amassed a large e-mail list and specialized in two types of advisories, an “action alert” and a “good news alert”. The former would deal with an alleged insult to Islam while the latter would be sent to supporters when a perceived opponent had been crushed. Unfortunately that happened all too often. CAIR served as a trip-wire, calling attention any discourse about Islam which cast it in a poor light. As the offending parties soon learned, any discussion of the religion that did not conform to CAIR’s airbrushed version would be targeted for swift retaliation.

CAIR’s program of intimidation soon branched onto a new path, what Middle East expert, Daniel Pipes characterized as “lawfulism” i.e., the use of America’s freedoms [the tools of Western republican democracies] against the system as a battering ram in order to weaken society - intellectually soften it up - so that it might more easily be steered towards the ultimate Islamist goal of establishing a caliphate.

“I can see a path to victory by the Islamists by working through the system. By working on the text books, by working in the law courts, by working in the political arena and the media…terrorism is a crutch, it’s a very good way of making your point but it’s not enough…” [source, Daniel Pipes: Lawfare & the Islamist’s Strategy, YouTube interview with Frank Gaffney]

For purposes of this essay we'll concentrate on the use of the courts to intimidate, through litigation or threat thereof, persons or organizations engaged in presenting a more realistic depiction of the religion in a public forum.

A common term for this brand of under-the-radar attack is “lawfare.” The same methodology is employed to hamper the very real need to keep close tabs on problematic Muslim organizations or individuals.

Combined, these techniques give CAIR and similarly aligned groups a very effective instrument to fraudulently present American Muslims as victims, knowing that concept resonates with the American left, its chief partner in this effort since both ideologies wish to destroy American traditionalism.

CAIR’s resources in this regard are considerable and it doesn’t hesitate to bring legal action against its perceived enemies.

Regarding the funding of CAIR litigious jihad, National Security expert John Guandolo [FBI, retired] has the following to say:

"...CAIR has also received funds from overseas organizations like WAMY (World Association of Muslim Youth) and IIRO (International Islamic Relief Organization). Both WAMY and IIRO are Saudi-funded groups whose U.S. offices were raided by the government because of their possible ties to Hamas and Al Qaeda. Most notably, In 1999, CAIR received $250,000 from a Saudi-based bank headed by the former Director of the Muslim World League (MWL). Osama bin Laden identified MWL as a primary source of funds for Al Qaeda. Federal investigators raided MWL’s U.S. offices. It is not a far reach to see that CAIR received money from a source the leader of Al Qaeda recognized was a “primary” source of funding for AQ..." [CAIR’s Attack on Zuhdi Jasser’s Funders Raises the Questions: Who is CAIR and Where Does Its Money Come From?, ACT For America]

Lawfare plays into the very correct narrative that most citizens and organizations are fearful of being named as a defendant in a court action. Even if CAIR as plaintiff does not prevail, the defendant can be bankrupted by the costs associated with mounting a legal defense.

This gives CAIR the advantage of carefully selecting its targets and forcing them to fight from a defensive position, often unaware of the danger until the trap is sprung.

Apart from a tally of CAIR’s wins and losses, the process is meant to [and does in fact] have a chilling effect on the exercise of a citizen's First Amendment right to freedom of political expression. How many spoke out and then were frightened into silence? How many feared to speak out at all because of the legal complications which might ensue?

In order to supercharge this assault, CAIR has often partnered with non-Muslim pressure groups - a force multiplier - gives the organization a bigger hammer. As one evaluates this process it’s important to keep in mind that the intimidation doesn’t have to necessarily be direct litigation; there are myriad avenues through which pressure can be brought to bear on targets.

A few examples:

1. Below, CAIR is teaming up with the neo-Marxist National Lawyers Guild and the equally extremist Center for Constitutional Rights, an odd name for a group which works to suppress the speech of its opponents.

“The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations-USA (CAIR-USA) sent members of the House of Representatives Education and the Workforce Committee a letter urging them to oppose legislation that would deny federal funding to colleges and universities that participate in a boycott of Israeli academic institutions or scholars…” [source, CCR, NLG and CAIR-USA Ask House Education Committee to Oppose Anti-Boycott Bill.

2. In 2007 the ACLU’s Southern California branch joined CAIR in a lawsuit to compel the federal government to provide information regarding surveillance of mosques and individuals. Not satisfied with the information they had been given following a request the previous year, CAIR and the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit.

"In that action they claimed that heightened surveillance post 9/11 deprived Muslims of their basic constitutional rights. CAIR also asserted that cooperation from the Muslim community was an essential part of law enforcement’s anti terrorism efforts and that unjustified surveillance resulted in a disillusioned Muslim community which would be unwilling to cooperate - not that we see much if any cooperation between American Islam and law enforcement..." [source, ACLU/SC Files Lawsuit on FBI Surveillance of Area Muslims , CAIR CA website]

3. In 2008 following a news report that the Chief of the Standard Technical Operations Center at Camp Pendleton stole surveillance files and gave them to local law enforcement, CAIR and the ACLU filed a request for all surveillance data from January 1, 2001 to the present. They demanded this from the FBI, the National Joint Terrorism Task Force (NJTTF), and the San Diego Police Department, arguing that the information pertained to the Islamic Center, CAIR and CAIR’s San Diego Office. CAIR and the ACLU were joined this time by the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella organization composed of mosques in the Southern California area.

“If the news reports are accurate, they reveal the perils of mass data collection programs,” said David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties. “If the government is spying on law-abiding Muslims merely because of their religion—without any evidence of criminal activity—any group could be next.” [source, CAIR, ACLU Seek Records in Muslim Surveillance Case , CAIR CA website]

4. In February 2011 Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren spoke, or more correctly, tried to speak, at the University of California, Irvine. He was repeatedly interrupted by students from that school’s Muslim Student Union (MSU) in what was subsequently proven to be a prearranged and orchestrated effort. CAIR and the NLG wrote to the Dean of the University asking that no punishment be applied to the individuals (who came to be known as the Irvine 11) individually or to the MSU. [source, ASUCR Passes Resolution in Support of Irvine 11, Stand with the 11]

5. Perhaps the most well known of CAIR’s grievance actions became popularly known as the case of the “Flying Imams.”

“In November 2006, on a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix, six imams were arrested on board the flight prior to takeoff and escorted off the airplane by law enforcement. Of course CAIR and their Greek Chorus accused the airline of targeting them because they were “flying while Muslim” and because they had prayed in the terminal before boarding. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The imams acted while and after boarding in a manner eerily reminiscent of the behavior used by the 9/11 hijackers and were overheard by Arabic speaking passengers to be strongly criticizing then President George W. Bush and mentioning Al Qaeda…” [source, Patrick Poole, CAIR’s Grievance Theater, the Flying Imams and 9/11, Front Page Magazine]

The CAIR litigation named as co-defendants the Minneapolis Airports Commission (MTC) and numerous John Does (passengers who reported their concerns to flight personnel). CAIR prevailed, and the imams received an undisclosed amount of money. Subsequently Congress passed a law retroactively immunizing citizens who reported suspicious behavior. The presiding judge, who seemed predisposed towards the plaintiff, ruled that the law did not apply to the MTC or to law enforcement agencies.

Though the ruckus created by the imams appeared to be a precursor to an al-Qaeda 9/11 type hijacking, the act of US Airways capitulating had the effect of making the world safer for future hijackers. At the time we at PipeLineNews observed that one of the goals of the Islamist campaign of intimidation through manipulative lawsuits was to make it politically/legally impossible for the nation to defend itself. Fortunately the Islamist/leftist tactic of suppressing basic rights via the use of strategic lawsuits is now being comprehensively challenged.

For example, the Manhattan based Lawfare Project, founded by Canadian born attorney and film maker Brooke Goldstein, was created to address the abuse of Western law by Islamist organizations, particularly CAIR and the utilization of civil lawsuits for the purpose of harassment.

In an interview published in the New English Review, Ms. Goldstein described the process whereby enemies of Western democracies turn the system in on itself.

“…The first part of our mission is to track, monitor, combat, and raise awareness about the phenomenon of lawfare - the use of the law as a weapon of war against liberal democracies as it affects free speech rights and undermines the ability of liberal democracies to engage in self-defense in the war on terrorism. The second function we perform is we arrange for pro bono counsel and financial support to anybody who is on the receiving end of a frivolous lawsuit aimed at silencing their exercise of free speech when it comes to issues of national security and public concern. [Jerry Gordon, CAIR and Lawfare: an Interview with Brooke Goldstein, NER]

Another counter-lawfare group, the American Freedom Law Center founded by David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise, is dedicated to defending the Constitutional rights of Americans against the Islamist assault. Extraordinarily tenacious, they have locked horns with CAIR during litigation and have successfully fought Shari’a based objections to free speech and the expression of religious views.

Additionally, the Center for Security Policy, under the leadership of Frank Gaffney, is quite active in this area serving as a platform to educate Americans about threats posed to U.S. national security which includes the lawfare phenomenon. To that end it has produced and published a wealth of information regarding the threat posed by Shari’a including Brooke Goldstein and Aaron Eltan Meyer’s Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech .

We have seen the purpose and, unfortunately too often the result of lawfare, a weapon used by CAIR, their co-religionist brethren and allied neo-Marxist attack dogs to silence Islam’s critics and to effectively void the First Amendment. At the same time the tactics have in numerous instances tied the hands of law enforcement which has a major responsibility of preventing the reoccurrence of 9/11 type attacks.

Constant vigilance is the price for living in the United States because its strengths - the liberties which most Americans take for granted - can be used against it in way unimagined by the Founders. As the Islamist’s use of - adopting Dr. Pipes terminology - "lawfulism," of which lawfare is only one aspect, becomes more widely understood perhaps the institutions and people who have simply rolled over against this clever device [and others who in the future will be subjected to this same mechanism] will come to see these actions for the deadly peril they represent. Failure to resist empowers and enables the Islamists' ultimate goal which is the subjugation of the West under the Shari’a.

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Footnote:

1. As part of the massive amount of evidence which the government presented in U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development et al, was a document authored by a high level member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Akram, and discovered in an anti-terror raid in 1991, during the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush, entitled: An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America [source, The Investigative Project]

The “group” above referenced is of course the terrorist Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the “goal” is the internal subversion of the West, in the author’s words, “sabotaging its miserable house by their hands” through a process they call “civilization jihad.”

Below, perhaps the most important pull-quote from the document:

“Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America: The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal...." [source, Investigative Project on Terrorism, An Explanatory Memorandum On the General Strategic Goal for the Group In North America , 5/22/1991. p. 4 of the English translation, the first half being in Arabic]